Adhesive products including medical devices and household consumer products can be used for many purposes. For example, adhesive medical devices are used to treat various medical and non-medical conditions or to supplement the use of other medical and consumer devices. These adhesive devices include, but are not limited to, adhesive bandages, ostomy devices, catheter stabilization devices, finger splints, nasal strips, wound therapy devices, ECG leads and drug delivery patches.
Many adhesive products including medical devices that are made through web converting manufacturing methods, are generally flat or planar (mostly two dimensional). For example, adhesive medical bandages may not have significant thickness, though they consist of multiple layers of materials, and typically are mostly flat. There is a need for adhesive products including medical devices that are three dimensional, which will enable a large number of new uses for such devices, uses that are not possible to achieve with traditional flat, planar devices. These new uses may include but are not limited to stabilization of other medical devices, wound care, treatment of burns, ostomy devices, application of antibiotic or antifungals, stabilization of joints, and treatment of other skin and nail conditions.
Fabrication of layered devices, and particularly layered medical device by continuous processes, such as web converting, work well for flat structures (layers), but may not be used to create devices with three-dimensional structures. Instead, such three dimensional (3D) structures must be separately placed/positioned, which may be expensive and time consuming, limiting rate of production and increasing manufacturing costs and cost of goods. Thus, there is also a need for automated processes or methods for manufacture of layered devices including 3D structures.